UC-NRLF 


B    3   332   Q2S 


EVE    BLANTYRE 
SIMPSON 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

University  of  California. 


Class 


AS  ADVOCATE 


FROM  PAINTING  BY  COUNT  NERLI 


SPIRIT  OF  THE  AGE 
SERIES:  NO.  II.  ROBERT 
LOUIS  STEVENSON:  BY 
E.    BLANTYRE    SIMPSON 


ROBERT  LOUIS 

STEVENSON 


BY 

E.  BLANTYRE 

SIMPSON 


JOHN  W.  LUCE  &  CO. 

BOSTON    AND     LONDON 

19     0     6 


Copyright,  1906,  by 

JOHN  W.  LUCE  &  COMPANY 

Boston,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 

All  rights  reserved 


mm 


iSa 


Lakeview  Press 

Boston  and  South  Framingham 

U.  S.  A. 


ILLUSTRATIONS         n .- 


1875 

AS  ADVOCATE 

frontispiece 

AN  EDINBURGH  STUDENT 

page  thirty-tiuo 

THE  TELLER  OF  TALES 

page  forty -eight 

1892 

PORTRAIT  PAINTED  'BT  COUNT  NERLI 
IN  SAMOA 

Reproduced  by  kind  permission  of  Mrs.  Turnbull 

page  sixty-four 


f1(^ 


194240 


SPIRIT  OF  THE  AGE 
SERIES 

The  publishers  desire  to  announce  that 
it  is  their  purpose  to  comprise  in  this  series 
a  collection  of  little  books  uniform  in  general 
style  and  appearance  to  the  present  volume 
and  having  for  their  subjects  men  and  women, 
whose  work  and  influence,  in  whatever  field 
of  literature  or  art  was  their  chosen  one,  may 
be  said  to  faintly  reflect  the  spirit  or  tenden- 
cies of  cultivated  thought  at  the  present  time. 

The  treatment  of  the  subject  matter  will 
not  be  conventional,  the  chief  aim  being  to 
present  to  the  readers  a  living,  marching  per- 
sonality breathing  with  the  individuality 
characteristic  of  the  person. 

Volume  I  of  this   series  is   Whistler 

by  Haldane  Macfall 

Volume   II,    Robert  Louis   Stevenson 

by  Eve  Blantyre  Simpson 

Additional  volumes  to  be  announced  shortly. 


A  spirit  all  sunshine,  graceful  from 
every  gladness,  useful  because 
bright."  Carlyle, 


The  mother  of  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson,  when  asked  to  in- 
scribe a  motto  on  a  guest  list, 
wrote : — 

"  The  world  is  so  full  of  a  number  of 
things, 
I  am  sure  we  should  all  be  happy  as 
kings." 

*^That,"  she  said,  '^includes 
the  whole  gospel  of  R.  L.  S.^^ 
These  Hnes  are  certainly  a  con- 
cise statement  of  the  spirit  in 
which  her  son  undertook  to  ex- 
pound the  benefits  to  be  derived 
from  "  performing  our  petty 
round  of  irritating  concerns  and 
duties  with  laughter  and  kind 
faces."  Before  he  could  walk 
steadily,  it  had  been  discovered 

9 


FORESIGHTS 

he  was  heavily  handicapped  by 
the  burden  of  ill-health.  Still 
the  good  fairy  who  came  to  his 
christening  endowed  him  with 
^*  sweet  content,''  a  gift  which 
carried  him  triumphantly 
through  all  hampering  difRcul- 
ties.  He  never  faltered  in  the 
task  he  set  himself — the  task  of 
happiness.  He  began  to  preach 
his  gospel  as  a  child.  He  would 
not  have  his  tawdry  toy  sword 
disparaged  even  by  his  father. 
/^I  tell  you,"  he  said,  ''the 
sword  is  of  gold,  the  sheath  of 
silver,  and  the  boy  who  has  it  is 
quite  contented.''  In  the  same 
manner  he  transformed  a  cod- 
dling shawl  into  a  wrap  fit  for  a 
soldier  on  a  night  march.  To 
the  end  of  his  days  he  was  eager 
to  be  happy.     We  are  told 

"  Two  men  looked  out  from  prison 
bars  ; 
One  saw  mud,  the  other  stars." 

10 


OF      THE      MAN 

When  bodily  ailments  held 
Stevenson  as  a  captive  in  bonds, 
his  keen  sight  pierced  through 
the  obstructions  which  held 
him  caged.  We  are  not  left 
in  doubt,  when  we  read  his 
books,  as  to  whether  his  gaze 
was  earthwards  or  to  heaven's 
distant  lamps.  He  taught 
others  to  see  with  his  clear 
vision,  and  he  expounded  his 
gospel  in  so  taking  a  manner, 
even  if  the  import  of  it  had 
savoured  more  of  mud  than 
stars,  it  would  have  been  studied 
for  its  style.  He  had  the  true 
artist  soul  within  him.  He 
wished  to  create  or  represent 
what  came  within  the  range  of 
those  brilliant  dark  eyes  of  his, 
so,  with  infinite  care  and  eflfort, 
he  strove  to  attune  his  words  to 
the  even  cadence  and  harmony 
with  which  he  wished  to  amaze 

11 


FORESIGHTS 

us,  for,  as  A.  J.  Balfour  said, 
'^he  was  a  man  of  the  finest 
and  most  delicate  imagination, 
a  style  which,  for  grace  and 
suppleness,  for  its  power  of  be- 
ing at  once  turned  to  any  pur- 
pose which  the  author  desired, 
has  seldom  been  matched." 
It  is  difficult  for  those  who 
knew  him  before  he  had,  by 
pure  hard  work,  won  his  way 
to  fame,  to  realise  how  one 
physically  so  fragile,  of  solight- 
somely  versatile  and  whimsical 
a  nature,  apparently  so  ready  to 
be  diverted  from  the  main  high- 
road by  a  desire  to  explore  any 
brambly  lane,  had  in  him  the 
deliberate  goal-winning  gait  of 
the  tortoise.  His  stubborn  te- 
nacity of  purpose  he  owed  to 
his  antecedents.  The  Scot's  in- 
alienable prerogative  of  pedi- 
gree   exercised    an    influence 

12 


OF      THE      MAN 

over  him,  though  he  appeared 
as  a  foreign  ingraft  upon  his 
Scotch  family  tree.  In  his  rec- 
ord of  his  father's  kinsfolk, 
A  Family  of  Engineers^  and  in 
many  of  his  essays,  he  engages 
his  readers'  attention  by  con- 
fiding to  them  his  own  and  his 
forebears'  history.  ^*  I  am  a 
rogue  at  egotism  myself ;  and 
to  be  plain,  I  have  rarely  or 
never  liked  any  man  who  was 
not,"  he  says. 

This  Benjamin  of  Edinburgh's 
literary  sons,  the  youngest,  not 
the  least,  was  born  in  the  very 
middle  of  last  century,  1850. 
This  babe,  that  was  to  do  Edin- 
burgh honour  yet,  had  been 
named  after  his  two  grand- 
fathers, Robert  Lewis.  He  was 
a  mixture  of  both,  the  inevit- 
able result  of  their  diverse  qual- 
ities, which  he  inherited.     The 

13 


FORESIGHTS 

Robert  (a  name  he  was  seldom 
known  by  in  his  youth)  was  from 
the  Stevenson  side.  They 
were  a  race  of  men  of  sterling 
metal,  who  lit  our  Northern 
Lights,  and  from  the  besieging 
sea  wrung  footholds  for  har- 
bours. From  them  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson  inherited  that 
tenacity  of  purpose  which  made 
him  write  and  rewrite  chapters 
till  his  phrases  concisely  ex- 
pressed his  meaning,  and  toil- 
somely labour  till  his  work  was 
perfected.  His  minister  grand- 
father he  etched  with  the  ^^  Old 
Manse.''  All  his  mother's 
people,  the  Balfours,  were  of  a 
sanguine,  hopeful  strain,  retain- 
ing an  elasticity  of  spirit  which 
never  lessened  under  the  bur- 
den of  years.  Stevenson  writes 
of  ^^that  wise  youth,  my 
uncle, ' '  who  was  a  grey-bcardcd 

14 


OF      THE      MAN 

doctor  when  his  nephew  thus 
refarred  to  him.  So  from  the 
daughter  of  the  Herd  of  Men 
at  Colinton  he  inherited  his 
perennial  youthfulness.  '^  He 
was  ever  the  spirit  of  boy- 
hood,''says  Barrie,  '*  tugging 
at  the  skirts  of  this  old  world, 
and  compelling  it  to  come  back 
and  play." 

It  was  well  for  the  boy  that  his 
mother  had  gifted  him  with  her 
hopeful  nature,  for  his  father 
had  Celtic  traits  in  his  charac- 
ter, and  was  oppressed  with  a 
morbid  sense  of  his  own  un- 
worthiness.  It  is  Carlyle  who 
vouches  for  the  fact  "  that 
wondrous  is  the  strength  of 
cheerfulness,  altogether  past 
calculation  its  power  of  endur- 
ance." Little  store  of  bodily 
vigour  had  Robert  Lewis ;  but 
with  his  buoyant,   enthusiastic, 

15 


FORESIGHTS 

inquisitive  spirit  he  accomplish- 
ed a  strong  man's  task,  *'  weav- 
ing his  garlands  when  his  mood 
was  gay,  mocking  his  sorrows 
with  a  solemn  jest.''  This 
treasured  only  son,  worshipped 
by  his  doting  parents  and  his 
nurse,  Alison  Cunningham, 
who  was  a  second  mother  to 
him,  reports  himself  to  have 
been  a  good  child.  He  also 
says  he  had  a  covenanting  child- 
hood. In  the  mid-Victorian 
era,  a  stricter  discipline  reigned 
over  nurseries  in  Scotland's 
capital  than  now.  **The  ser- 
viceable pause"  in  the  week's 
work  on  Sunday  was  not  with- 
out real  benefits,  for  the  chil- 
dren of  these  times,  if  sermons 
were  long  and  the  Sabbath  de- 
void of  toys,  learned  to  sit  still 
and  to  endure,  and  very  useful 
lessons  they  were  to  R.  L.  S. 

16 


OF      THE      MAN 

and  others.  Despite  being  an 
extra  model  little  soul,  ^' emi-/ 
nently  religious/'  he  says,  he 
was  much  like  other  children. 
His  nurse  tells  how,  during  one 
of  the  many  feverish,  wakeful 
nights  he  suflfered  from,  when 
he  lay  wearying  for  the  carts 
coming  (a  sign  to  him  of  morn- 
ing), she  read  to  him  for  hours 
at  his  request  the  Bible.  He 
fell  asleep,  soothed  by  her  kind 
voice,  to  awake  when  the  sun 
was  bright  on  the  window  pane. 
Again  he  commanded,  ^*  Read 
to  me,  Cummie."  '*  And  what 
chapter  would  my  laddie 
like?"  she  asked.  ^^  Why,  it's 
daylight  now,"  he  answered  ; 
^'I'm  not  afraid  any  longer; 
put  away  the  Bible,  and  go  on 
with  Ballantyne's  story." 
^*I  am  one  of  the  few  people  [ 
in  the  world  who  do  not  forget  \ 

17 


FORESIGHTS 

their  own  lives,"  he  boasted. 
His  Garden  of  Verses  testifies  to 
the  truth  of  this  statement. 
When  he  was  a  man  over  thirty, 
he  bridged  the  gulf  of  years, 
and  wrote  of  the  golden  days 
of  childhood.  Not  only  do 
the  little  people  joy  to  near  his 
piping,  but  those  who  sit  in  the 
elders'  seat  hearken  to  these 
happy  songs  of  merry  cheer 
coming  to  them  as  echoes  from 
the  well-nigh  forgotten  past. 
His  father  often  sat  by  his  sick- 
bed, and  beguiled  his  small  son 
from  fears  and  pains  by  tales 
''of  ship-wreck  on  outlying 
iron  skerries'  pitiless  breakers, 
and  great  sea-lights,  clothed  in 
language  apt,  droll  and  empha- 
tic." His  mother  and  Cummie 
read  to  him  day  and  night. 
Thus  early  the  instinct  of  auth- 
orship was    fired   within    him. 

18 


OF      THE      MAN 

One  evening  the  young  Steven- 
sonrealisedthatthe  printedpage 
was  intelligible  to  him.     It  was 
as  if  a  rock  that  barred  his  en- 
trance into  the  cave  of  treasure 
had  melted,  or  swung  back  at 
his  command.     Till  then  Louis 
had    been    keen,     like    other 
youngsters,  on  adopting  many 
professions  when  he   grew  up. 
Soldiering,  even  in   the  Crim- 
ean War  time,  did  not  appeal 
to    the    girlishly    gentle   little 
chap,  for,  as  he  shrewdly  re- 
marked, he  neither  wanted  to 
kill  anybody  nor  be  killed  him- 
self.   When  he  learned  to  read, 
he  saw  before  him  all  the  rows  of 
books  which  he  was  told  had 
finer    stirring    stories   in  them 
than  even  those  his  father  told 
him,  and  he  resolved  he,  too, 
would  be  a  maker  of  tales. 
Those  wide  apart  but  penetrat- 

19 


FORESIGHTS 

ing  eyes  of  his  had  caught  sight 
of  an  ideal  guiding  star  to  fol- 
low, viz.,  Literature.  His  ju- 
venile ambition  to  be  a  "  Leerie 
licht  the  lamp"  faded.  To 
reach  the  gleam  which  had 
enamoured  him,  he  knew  he 
must  build  with  care  and  pati- 
ence, like  his  family  of  engi- 
neers, a  tower  to  enclose  or  a 
ladderto  reach  to thiswill-o'-the- 
wisp  which  inveigled  him  up- 
ward. His  mind  teemed  with 
ideas;  but  he  saw  he  would 
have  to  serve  an  apprenticeship 
>,  to  learn  to  weave  smoothly  to- 
\  gether  the  web  of  his  fancy, 
\  till,  in  his  verbal  fabric,  he  had 
the  charm  of  all  the  muses 
flowering  in  a  single  word. 
He  describes  to  us  how  he  be- 
came a  skilled  artificer  with  his 
pen,  and  how  with  obstinate 
persistence  he  taught  himself 

20 


OF      THE      MAN 

daintiness  of  diction.  In  his 
first  book  of  travels  he  men- 
tions how  the  branch  of  a  tree 
caught  him,  and  the  flooded 
Oise  bereft  him  of  his  canoe. 
^'On  my  tomb,  if  ever  I  have 
one,'^  he  wrote,  ''I  mean  to 
get  these  words  inscribed,  He 
clung  to  his  paddle.^''  The  pad- 
dle he  chose  was  his  pen.  It 
was  the  motive  power  which 
forwarded  him  along  the  river 
of  life,  through  shoals  and  rap- 
ids. When  but  a  wee  toddHng 
bairn,  he  drew  his  nurse  aside 
and  commanded  her  to  write, 
as  he  had  a  story  to  tell.  He 
dictated  to  his  mother,  too, 
when  a  boy  of  six,  an  essay  on 
Moses.  As  a  housebound  child, 
he  had  to  amuse  himself. 
Skelt's  dramas  were  then  his 
delight;  but  the  life  of  every 
child  is  a  prophecy  for  those 

21 


FORESIGHTS 

who  know  how  to  interpret  it. 
His  mother  was  prescient,  and 
fore-told  her  white-faced  Louis 
had  the  light  of  genius  in  those 
windows  of  the  soul — the  eyes. 
**  Talent/'  she  knew,  ^'  was  the 
result  of  human  labor  and  cul- 
ture." He  dreamed,  when 
but  four,  he  ^' heard  the  noise 
of  pens  writing.''  She  took  it 
and  hvs  childish  "  Songstries  "' 
he  sung  as  an  earnest  of  his 
future. 

Louis'  father,  despite  being, 
like  Dr.  John  Brown's  Rab, 
**fu'  o'  seriousness,"  had  odd 
whims,  among  others,  an  objec- 
tion to  schools  and  lessons,  so 
he  raised  no  objection  to  his 
son's  regulation  school-days  be- 
ing intermittent.  When  barely 
in  his  teens,  Stevenson  was  or- 
dered South,  and  spent  two 
winters  abroad.     He  was  a  pu- 

22 


OF      THE      MAN 

pil  at  Edinburgh  Academy  for 
a  few  years.  Andrew  Lang  was 
there  at  the  same  time  ;  but,  he 
explains,  the  future  Tusitala, — 
''  the  lover  of  children,  the  tell- 
er of  tales,  giver  of  counsel, 
and  dreams,  awonder,  a  world's 
delight,"  —  and  he  did  not 
meet  there,  for  Louis  was  "  but 
a  little  whey-faced  urchin,  the 
despicable  member  of  some 
lower  class,"  when  his  future 
brother  author  was  '^  an  elder- 
ly boy  of  seventeen."  The 
pity  was  that  the  cosseted  only 
son  never  rubbed  against  his 
compatriot  children  in  the  dis- 
cipline of  the  play-fields,  but 
in  some  of  his  summer  holidays 
he  tasted  of  the  doubtful  pleas- 
ures of  lantern-bearing  and 
other  boyish  '^glories  of  exist- 
ence." 
When  the  lad  was  seventeen, 

23 


FORESIGHTS 

his  parents  leased  Swanston 
Cottage,  which  became  their 
summer  home,  and  a  big  factor 
in  their  boy's  education.  It  is 
a  spot  peculiarly  secluded,  to 
be  within  sight  and  sound  of 
Edinburgh,  lying  hidden  in  the 
lap  of  the  hills,  sheltered  ^^  frae 
nirly  nippin'  EasUan'  breeze 
and  haaro'  seas.''  It  was  there 
Stevenson  began  deliberately 
to  educate  himself  to  become 
the  Master  StyHst— the  '*  Virgil 
of  prose"  of  his  contemporaries. 
These  Pentlands  were  to  him 
always  the  hills  of  home.  He 
lifted  his  eyes  to  them  from  the 
old  manse  of  Colinton,  when 
he  played  there  in  his  grand- 
father's garden.  He  longing- 
ly, in  gaps  between  the  tall, 
grey  houses,  looked  for  their 
familiar  outline  when  winter 
prisoned  him  in   Auld  Reekie. 

24 


OF      THE      MAN 

These  pastoral  hills,  with  their 
sweeps  of  heathy  moorlands, 
appear  from  first  to  last  in  his 
works.  Two  of  his  initial 
Memories  and  Portraits  depict 
his  hill-folk  neighbors,  the 
Shepherd  and  the  Gardener. 
It  was  at  a  church  '^  atween  the 
muckle  Pentland's  knees  ''  that 
Archie  Weir  of  Hermiston  not- 
ed young  Kirsty,  and  that  same 
^'little  cruciform  place''  was 
the  scene  of  his  ^'  petit  poeme  en 
prose j^^  where  we  can  all  spend 
a  peaceful  "  Lowden  Sabbath 
morning"  with  his  ^Miving 
Scotch  "  sounding  in  our  ears. 
However  far  away  Louis  Stev- 
enson roved,  there  was  mirrored 
on  the  tablets  of  his  memory 
his  own  country,  its  speech,  its 
very  atmosphere.  He  wrote  a 
New  Arabian  Nights,  but  from 
the  old  (he  tells  us  how  his  minis- 

25 


FORESIGHTS 

ter  grandfather  envied  him  his 
first  reading  thereof)  he  had  ac- 
quired the  secret  of  the  magic 
carpet,  and  could  be  trans- 
ported at  will  from  the  tropics 
back  to  where  the  curlews  and 
the  plovers  wailed  and  swooped 
above  the  whins  and  the  heather 
on  his  hills  of  sheep. 


STEVENSON'S 

APPRENTICESHIP 


In  his  early  days,  Louis  was 
sociable,  pleased  when  he  met 
compatriot  children,  ready  to 
be  dressed  and  go  to  parties. 
But  after  he  left  school,  his 
mood  changed.  He  had  been 
completely  sheltered  from 
rebuffs,  so,  when  he  stood  in 
the  "palace  porch  of  life,'' 
and  the  peculiar  accents  of  his 
mind  were  jeered  at,  he,  who 
had  never  tasted  of  a  whipping, 
felt  the  smart  of  humankind, 
and  suffered  sorely  from 
"maladies  incident  to  only 
sons."  In  the  "  coiled  per- 
plexities of  youth  "  he  "  sor- 
rowed,   sobbed,    and   feared" 

27 


STEVENSON^S 

alone.  Blackford's  uncultured 
breast  had  been  meet  nurse  for 
Sir  Walter  when  he  roamed  a 
truant  boy,  but  further  south  of 
the  becastled  capital,  topmost 
Allermuir  or  steep  Caerketton 
became  the  cradle  of  the  next 
poet  and  master  of  Romance 
that  Edinburgh  reared.  There, 
in  woody  folds  of  the  hills,  he 
found,  as  he  said,  "bright  is 
the  ring  of  words,"  and  there 
he  taught  himself  to  be  the 
right  man  to  ring  them.  When 
Swanston  became  the  Steven- 
sons'  summer  home,  the  un- 
disciplined Robert  kicked  with 
his  fullest  vigour  against  what 
he  called  the  Bastille  of  Civilisa- 
tion and  the  bowing  down  be- 
fore "the  bestial  Goddesses, 
Comfort  and  Respectability." 
He  was  loudly  rebellious,  and 
too    impatient    to    follow    the 

28 


APPRENTICESHIP 

ordinary  rules  of  life  or  the 
sage  advice,  '*  Jowk  and  let  the 
jaw  gae  by.'' 

An  impression  has  arisen,  be- 
cause of  his  revolt  in  these  years 
against  convention  and  creeds, 
that  he  was  thwarted  and  un- 
appreciated in  his  home  and  its 
surroundings.  On  the  contrary, 
he  was  at  liberty  to  indulge  his 
Bohemian  tastes  and  do  much 
as  he  listed.  His  father  gave 
him  a  seemingly  inadequate 
allowance.  Yet  Thomas  Stev- 
enson was  not  a  miserly  man. 
He  begged  his  son  to  go  to  his 
tailor's,  for  he  disapproved  of 
the  youth's  scuflfy,  mounte- 
bankish  appearance.  He  sup- 
plied him  with  an  allowance 
for  travel — in  fact,  R.  L.  S.  had 
all  his  bills  paid,  and  his  own 
study  in  a  very  hospitable  home. 
R.   L.   S.    owned    books,    and 

29 


STEVENSON^S 

jewels  were  the  only  things  he 
felt  tempted  to  buy.  The  £  1 
a  month  allowance,  when  he 
left  school,  raised  soon  after  to 
£^2  a  year,  was  to  keep  the 
money  from  dropping  out  of 
that  hole  in  the  pocket  of  his 
ragged  jacket,  which  never 
seemed  to  get  sewed  up.  Books 
he  had  in  plenty,  but  his  parents 
naturally  did  not  treat  him  to 
strings  of  flashing  stones  to 
wear  over  his  shabby  velvet 
coat,  or  twine  round  his  batter- 
ed straw  hat.  His  money  af- 
fairs, like  the  table  of  Weir 
of  Hermiston,  were  likely  all 
his  life  '^just  mismanaged.'' 
By  the  time  he  settled  in  Sa- 
moa, his  literary  earnings  were 
thousands  a  year;  and  by  then 
his  quiet-living,  hard-working 
father  was  dead,  leaving  an 
ample  fortune.    Still  he  seemed 

30 


APPRENTICESHIP 

haunted  by  fear  of  lack  of 
means. 

Louis'  love  and  admiration  for 
his  father  was  deep  and  sincere. 
At  his  home,  when  guests  gath- 
ered round  the  engineer's  ta- 
ble, the  boy,  with  his  eyes  spark- 
ling, Hstened  to  his  father's 
''strange,  humorous  vein  of 
talk,"  then  glanced  round  with 
a  smile  of  expectation  to  see 
how  much  others  appreciated 
their  host's  well-told  tales. 
''  My  father  was  always  my 
dearest,"  he  wrote.  This  was 
a  high  certificate  of  apprecia- 
tion, when  we  remember  he 
had  the  most  devoted  of  moth- 
ers. It  hurt  the  son  to  the 
quick  to  deal  his  "  dearest  "  a 
staggering  blow,  and  decline 
to  follow  his  hereditary  profes- 
sion. Louis  had  tried  to  be  an 
engineer.     He  liked  the  swing- 

31 


STEVENSON^S 

ing,  smoking  seas  on  which 
they  struggled  for  a  site  for 
sheltering  masonry.  As  in  the 
case  of  other  Stevensons,  the 
romance  of  the  work  was  wel- 
come to  him,  but  the  office 
stool  frightened  him.  When 
the  would-be  author  had  refus- 
ed to  follow  in  his  kinsmen's 
footsteps,  he  promised  to  study 
as  an  advocate  to  satisfy  his 
father,  who  urged  his  son  to 
follow  a  recognised  profession. 
Owing  to  his  easy-going  school- 
ing and  lack  of  a  settled  course 
of  study,  the  law  classes  were 
excellent  training  for  the 
erratic,  mercurial-notioned 
youth.  Stevenson  had  the 
good  fortune  in  1869  to  be 
elected  a  member  of  the  Spec- 
ulative, the  famed  Debating  So- 
ciety where  Jeffrey  first  met 
Scott.     There    Stevenson    en- 

32 


^A^  EDINBURGH  STUDENT 


APPRENTI C  E  S  H I P 

countered  his  contemporaries 
in  years  and  social  standing, 
his  superiors  in  debate,  and  he, 
*'the  lean,  ugly,  idle,  unpopu- 
lar student,"  as  he  calls  him- 
self, enjoyed  "  its  a4:mosphere 
of  good-fellowship,  its  vivid 
and  varied  interests,  its  tradi- 
tions of  honourable  labour  and 
success."  "  Speculative  even- 
ings," says  R.  L.  S.,  ''form 
pretty  salient  milestones  on  our 
intellectual  journey. "  He  had 
gripped  a  deal  of  the  founda- 
tions of  his  hereditary  trade 
when  seemingly  but  a  consist- 
ent idler.  He  mastered  the 
intricacies  of  law,  and  took  to 
the  abhorred  office  stool  so  as 
to  learn  the  better  the  workings 
of  its  slow  machinery.  He  tells 
us  he  only  obtained  the  mastery 
of  his  pen  by  toiling  faithfully, 
but  inborn  in  him  was  the  art 

33 


STEVENSON^S 

of  talking.  Even  as  a  petti- 
coated  child,  we  read  he  gestic- 
ulated to  aid  his  glib  tongue. 
W.  E.  Henley  (whose  acquaint- 
ance Louis  made  about  1875, 
and  who  helped  Stevenson  with 
his  chary  praise  and  frank  criti- 
cism) says  of  his  friend,  '^He 
radiates  talk.  He  will  discourse 
with  you  of  morals,  music, 
marbles,  men,  manners,  meta- 
physics, medicine,  mangold- 
wurzel,  with  equal  insight  into 
essentials  and  equal  pregnancy 
and  felicity  of  utterance." 
Along  with  this  ready  affluence 
of  speech,  the  youth  had  what 
good  talkers  often  lack,  viz., 
the  patience  to  hearken  to 
others.  Stevenson  shone  best 
in  what  he  called  a  little  com- 
mittee of  talkers,  though  his 
father  and  he  used  to  argue  a 
question  together  for  days ;  but, 

34 


APPRENTI CES  HIP 

in  the  Speculative,  he  had  at 
first  to  be  a  listener.  A  candid 
fellow-member  says,  '^  I  cannot 
remember  that  Stevenson  was 
ever  anything  as  a  speaker.  He 
was  nervous  and  ineflfective, 
and  had  no  power  of  debate  ; 
but  his  papers  were  success- 
ful." In  one  of  his  essays, 
touching  on  this  select  assem- 
blage, Louis  sketches  what  the 
editor  of  the  History  of  the 
Speculative  Society^  just  pub- 
lished, calls  "a  little  Dutch 
picture  ;  it  focuses  in  vivid  col- 
our the  associations  which  rise 
in  the  memory  at  the  name  of 
the  Spec. — ^the  stately  old  room 
aglow  with  many  candles,  the 
books,  the  portraits,  the  pious 
commemoration  of  the  dead, — 
famous  men  and  our  fathers 
that  begat  us. "  ' '  Stevenson, ' ' 
Mr  Dickson  goes  on  to  say,  ^ '  is 

35 


STEVENSON^S 

the  most  famous  man  of  letters 
who  has  belonged  to  the  So- 
ciety since  Scott.  No  more 
interesting  personality  has  ever 
been  of  our  number,  and  no 
one  has  in  the  public  eye  been 
more  closely  identified  with  the 
Society."  ''Oh,  I  do  think 
the  Spec,  is  about  the  best 
thing  in  Edinburgh,"  Louis 
exclaims,  and  twice  he  was 
President  of  the  "worshipful 
society." 

A  contemporary  of  Stevenson's, 
Sheriff  Guthrie,  wrote  in  1899, 
"I  knew  Louis  first  in  the 
Speculative  Society  ;  second,  as 
a  fellow  student  in  the  Univer- 
sity Law  Classes ;  third,  being 
called  to  the  Scottish  Bar  about 
the  same  time  as  a  brother-in- 
law  ;  and  last,  as  a  friend  with 
many  interests  in  common.  In 
the  Speculative  he  spoke  fre- 

36 


APPRENTICESHIP 

quently,  and  read  some  papers. 
We  recognised  his  brilliancy, 
and  we  delighted  in  his  vivacity; 
but  we  misread  the  horoscope 
of  his  future.  We  voted  him 
a  light  horseman,  lacking  two 
essentials  for  success—dil- 
igence and  health.  We  won- 
dered where  he  had  got  the 
deftness  and  rhythm  of  his 
style,  not  knowing  that  the 
labour  out  of  which  it  was 
evoked  was  of  itself  sufficient 
to  refute  our  estimate  of  his 
powers  of  work.  As  to  his 
health,  we  forgot  behind  that 
slender,  angular  frame  was  not 
only  a  father's  iron  constitution 
and  a  mother's  nervous  vitality, 
but  his  own  cheerful  spirit  and 
indomitable  will."  The 
Sheriff,  in  this  letter  to  me,  re- 
calls several  reminiscences  of 
Stevenson — some  in  a    playful 

37 


STEVENSON^S 

or  contrariwise  vein,  and 
another  memory  illustrates,  he 
says,  "the  sweet  reasonable- 
ness which  mingled  with  his 
wayward  Bohemianism";  but 
space  does  not  allow  me  to 
quote  more  than  how,  "It 
seems  but  yesterday  that  I  met 
Louis  in  the  Parliament  House, 
and  said  I  heard  he  had  got  a 
case.  And  I  seem  to  see  the 
twinkle  in  his  eye  and  the  toss 
of  his  arms  as  he  answered, 
*Yes,  my  boy,  you'll  see  how 
ni  stick  in,  now  that  I've  tasted 
blood.'" 

Louis'  mother  showed  this 
friend,  Mr.  Guthrie,  a  succes- 
sion of  her  boy's  photographs, 
ending  in  wig  and  gown  as  an 
advocate.  "That  is  what  I  call 
from  Baby  to  Bar,"  she  said; 
and  then  added,  beginning  with 
a   smile,    and    ending    with    a 

38 


UNIVERSITY 

OF 


APPRENTICES  HIP 

break  in  her  voice,  ''I  said  to 
Louis  once  that  the  next  collec- 
tion would  be  from  Bar  to 
Baronet,  and  he  replied,  ^It 
will  be  from  Bar  to  Burial.''' 
Except  at  the  "dear  old 
Spec,"  he  mixed  little  his 
equals  in  Edinburgh.  As  a 
writer  in  Blackwood  points  out, 
at  thfe  period  he  had  grown  in- 
to swallow-tails,  Edinburgh 
was  by  no  means  devoid  of  in- 
tellectual company,  which  even 
a  famed  Robert  Louis  need  not 
have  despised.  But  he  abhor- 
red constraint  and  codes  of 
rules.  He  was  a  born  advent- 
urer and  practical  experiment- 
ist  in  life,  and  he  explains  he 
spent  much  of  his  time  scrap- 
ing acquaintance  with  all  classes 
of  men  and  womenkind. 
His  insatiable  curiosity  made 
him  thirst  to  taste  of  the  bitter  as 

39 


STEVENSON^S 

well  as  the  sweet,  to  be  pricked 
by  the  thorn  as  well  as  smell 
the  rose.  He  was  quick  to  see 
the  humorous  side  of  a  tale  or 
episode,  but  he  was  tenderly 
sensitive  to  ridicule.  When  he 
appeared  among  his  legal 
brothers-in-law  in  the  Parlia- 
ment House,  a  wit  there  among 
the  unemployed  advocates  in 
the  old  hall  called  him  the 
Gifted  Boy.  He  winced  under 
the  laugh,  and  fled  from  "the 
interminable  patter  of  legal 
feet.'^  He  had  cultivated 
notoriety  by  his  shabby  dress 
and  lank  locks.  He  did  not 
realise,  as  an  American  says, 
"If  you  look  as  if  you  had 
slept  in  your  clothes  most  men 
will  jump  to  the  conclusion  that 
you  have,  and  you  will  never 
get  to  know  them  well  enough 
to  explain  that  your  head  is  so 

40 


APPRENTI  CES  HIP 

full  of  noble  thoughts  that  you 
haven't  time  to  bother  with 
the  dandruf3F  on  your  shoul- 
ders.'' In  a  corridor  in  the 
Parliament  House,  where  the 
men  called  to  the  Bar  keep 
open-mouthed  boxes  for  docu- 
ments to  be  slipped  in,  one 
bore  on  its  plate  the  inscription 
R.  L.  Stevenson.  When  that 
alien-looking  advocate  with 
unsuspected  gifts  had  cast  oflf 
the  wig  and  gown,  and  had 
busied  himself  for  years  filling 
up  reams  of  paper  with  his 
thoughts  and  studies  on  people, 
places,  and  things,  sightseers 
going  through  the  Courts 
would  be  shown  this  unused 
box,  which  remained  so  empty 
while  those  around  it  of  his  old 
rivals  at  the  Spec,  were  full,  as 
they  were  scahng  the  heights 
which  lead   to   titles   and    the 

41 


STEVENSON^S 

Bench. 

Stevenson  wrote  of  Edinburgh 
and  her  climate  in  a   carping 
spirit,    nevertheless   he    ac- 
corded due  praise  to  her  unsur- 
passed beauty.     ^'Noplace  so 
brands  a  man,"   he  declared; 
and,    in   his   turn,    Stevenson 
left  his  brand  on  the  romantic 
city  of  his  birth,  for  now  no  book 
on  Scotland's  capital  is  written 
without  mention  of  the  haunts 
and  homes  of  that  changeling- 
looking    son     of     hers.     The 
door-plate  of   17  Heriot  Row 
bore   the  inscription  of  R.  L. 
Stevenson,   Advocate.      No 
blue-bag  laden  clerk  dropped 
briefs  then  into  its  letter-box. 
In  one  of  its  sun-facing  draw- 
ing-room windows  there  stood 
a  big  Australian  vine,  carefully 
tended   and    trained.      It  was 
behind  it,  in  the  far  window, 

42 


APPRENTICESHIP 

the  eighteen-year-old  lad  sat 
when,  in  the  winter's  gloamin', 
Mrs.  Fleeming  Jenkin,  calling 
on  his  mother,  was  startled  by 
his  voice  joining  in  the  con- 
versation. The  visitor  says,  ^*I 
listened  in  perplexity  and 
amasement.  Who  was  this  son 
who  talked  as  Charles  Lamb 
wrote  ?  this  young  Heine  with 
the  Scotch  accent  ?  When  I 
came  away  the  unseen  conver- 
ser  came  down  with  me  to  the 
front  door  to  let  me  out.  As 
he  opened  it,  the  light  of  the 
gas  lamp  outside  ('  For  we  are 
very  lucky  with  a  lamp  before 
the  door/  he  says)  fell  on 
him,  and  I  saw  a  slender, 
brown,  long-haired  lad,  with 
great  dark  eyes,  a  brilliant 
smile,  and  a  gentle,  deprecating 
bend  of  the  head.  I  asked 
him  to  come  and  see  us.     He 

43 


STEVENSON^S 

said,  *  Shall  I  come  to-mor- 
row? ' ''  He  called  next  day, 
for  Louis  grasped  at  anything 
or  any  person  that  he  felt 
drawn  to.  He  took  part  in 
their  theatricals,  but  otherwise 
eschewed  social  functions  in 
Edinburgh.  An  old  friend  of 
his  father's  asked  him  to  come 
to  fill  a  gap  at  his  table,  though 
his  own  son  had  informed  him 
Louis  never  went  to  prear- 
ranged feasts.  Louis  himself  re- 
plied to  this  invitation  :  ''  C.  is 
textually  correct,  only  there 
are  exceptions  everywhere  to 
prove  the  rule.  I  do  not  hate 
dining  at  your  house.  At  sev- 
en, on  Wednesday,  his  temples 
wreathed  with  some  appropri- 
ate garland,  you  will  behold 
the  victim  come  smiling  to  the 
altar. '^  The  last  words  are 
characteristic   of     his    attitude 

44 


APPRENTICESHIP 

when  he  was  lured  into  so- 
ciety,— he  went  a  willing  vic- 
tim, with  no  affectation  of 
martyrdom.  The  few  who  met 
him  in  Edinburgh  drawing- 
rooms  found  him  prodigal  of 
tongue,  somewhat  puzzling 
with  his  wholesale  enthusi- 
asms, absurd  flights  of  fancy, 
theories  he  had  to  propound, 
and  ever  ready  to  change  like 
a  chameleon  to  tone  with  his 
surroundings.  The  spritish, 
fantastic  youth  impressed  those 
he  encountered,  even  when  he 
was  one  of  the  unfledged  eag- 
lets hatched  in  the  ancient 
eyrie  of  his  precipitous  city, 
whom  Browning  tells  us  are 
not  counted  ^4ill  there  is  a 
rush  of  wings,  and  lo  !  they  are 
flown.''  ^^  What  was  so  taking 
in  him,  and  how  is  one  to 
analyse  that  dazzling  surface  of 

45 


STEVENSON^S 

pleasantry,  that  changeful, 
shining  humour,  wit,  wisdom, 
recklessness,  beneath  which 
beat  the  most  kind  and  tolerant 
of  hearts  ?  "  asks  Andrew  Lang. 
But  not  only  through  the  mag- 
netism of  his  personal  presence 
did  he  attract  even  strangers, 
but  through  his  pen  has  he 
held  in  thrall  all  the  reading 
pubHc  who  liked  his  work. 
**  He  has  put  into  his  books  a 
great  deal  of  all  that  went  to 
the  making  of  his  life,"  wrote 
his  cousin,  ''though  he  had 
the  art  of  confiding  a  good 
deal,  but  not  telHng  every- 
thing." It  would  have  been 
interesting  to  see,  if  Stevenson 
had  taken  it  into  his  elfin- 
locked  head  to  learn  to  shine  in 
debate,  and,  instead  of  incu- 
bating a  budding  Scott,  as  he 
said,  "the  Spec."  had  trained 

46 


APPRENTICESHIP 

an  able  advocate,  if  the  glamour 
of  his  personahty  would  have 
extended  to  the  judges,  and 
made  him,  with  his  well-chosen 
words,  a  successful  pleader. 
The  boards  of  the  Parliament 
House  were  too  well  worn  a 
road  for  so  tramp-blooded  a 
man.  The  tune  ^'Over  the 
Hills  and  Far  Away"  was  for 
ever  humming  in  his  head. 
He  left  the  venerable  city  of 
his  birth,  which  he  vowed  he 
must  always  think  of  as  home, 
and  steered  a  course  on  his 
way  to  fame  "far  ayont  the 
muckle  sea"  which  led  him 
from  the  Bar  to  Burial. 


ACROSS    THE     SEAS 


As  an  advocate,  Stevenson 
found  ample  time  to  pursue 
his  chosen  profession  of  letters, 
for,  during  the  winters  in 
Edinburgh,  he  wrote  much, 
and  gradually  his  essays,  etc., 
appeared  in  magazines,  and  are 
now  gathered  into  happily 
named  volumes.  He  spent  the 
long  vacations,  when  the  Courts 
had  risen,  abroad,  mostly  fre- 
quenting an  artist-colony  in 
Fontainebleau.  At  that  time 
he  was  full  of  a  project,  in 
company  with  some  congenial 
spirits,  to  form  a  peripatetic 
club,  buy  a  barge,  and  glide 
leisurely   through   Europe    by 

48 


TELLER  OF  TALES 


ACROSS    THE    SEAS 

calm  waterways.  He  had  gone 
yachting  one  summer  with  a 
sea-loving  brother  advocate  up 
the  west  coast  of  Scotland. 
The  memory  of  that  trip  in- 
habited his  mind,  and  he  made 
his  hero,  David  Balfour,  when 
^^  Kidnapped ^^^  s^\\  by  the  self- 
same islands  and  seas.  Louis 
was  persuaded  by  his  boating 
friend,  the  following  season, 
to  embark  with  him  on  a  canoe 
trip  through  Belgium ;  and  the 
log  of  that  tour  became  im- 
mortalised as  An  Inland  Voyage^ 
Stevenson's  first  book.  His 
travels  did  not  end  when  he 
left  his  frail  craft  at  Pontoise, 
for,  returning  to  Gretz,  on  the 
skirts  of  Fontainebleau,  he  first 
met  his  future  wife,  and  that 
led  a  few  years  later  to  his  fol- 
lowing her  to  San  Francisco, 
when  she  was  free  to  remarry. 

49 


ACROSS 

He    crossed    the   Atlantic    and 
America  as  an  Emigrant.    That 
mode  of  life  proved  too  hard 
for  him.      He  had   sailed   and 
paddled   without    hurt   in    his 
fleet  and  footless  beast  of  bur- 
den, the  Arethusa.      In  the  en- 
suing year  (1877),  he  travelled 
^'  Through    the  Cevennes  with   a 
Donkey ^^^    slept    under     starry 
skies,  or  camped  in  plumping 
rain.    Oftenathomehe  buckled 
on  his  knapsack   and  tramped 
along    the    open  road,    but  in 
these  trips,  as  in  his  two  longer 
outdoor  journeys,   he  had  the 
heavens  above  him.     The  Em- 
igrant  was    crowded   with   his 
fellows,   so  Louis  arrived  sick 
and  sorry  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Atlantic,  where  he  had  to 
support  himself,  having  left  his 
home      against      his      father's 
wishes.       The     rising    author 

50 


THE         SEAS 

found  his  market  value  in 
America  low-priced,  and  his 
curiosity  as  to  how  it  felt  to  be 
ill  and  penniless  was  satisfied. 
After  his  marriage  in  1880, 
Louis,  his  wife,  and  her  son 
became  ^^  Silverado  Squatters ^^^ 
which  proved  a  happier  vent- 
ure, both  for  purse  and  con- 
stitution, than  being  an  ^^  Ama- 
teur Emigrant'';  also,  Mr  Stev- 
enson generously  settled  an  in- 
come on  his  son. 
In  a  perpetual  pursuit  of  health, 
the  writer  and  his  hostages  to 
fortune  rambled  from  the 
snows  of  Switzerland  to  the 
vineyards  of  France,  and  final- 
ly settled  for  three  years  at 
Bournemouth.  Stevenson's 
undermined  health  grew  worse; 
but  he  laboured  on  at  his  work, 
from  his  sick  bed.  Some  sum- 
mers he  spent  in  Scotland,  and 

51 


ACROSS 

at  Braemar  wrote  Treasure  Is- 
land: then  yekyll  and  Hyde 
brought  him  notoriety.  He 
was  anxious  to  return  to  his 
Alma  Mater,  and  be  there  a 
Professor  of  History.  A  house 
in  the  cup-like  dell  of  Colinton, 
where  every  twig  had  a  choris- 
ter, would  have  sheltered  him 
from  the  purgatorial  climate  ; 
and  the  College,  like  the 
Courts,  allowed  long  vacations, 
spring  and  summer,  to  journey 
ofif  to  bask  in  the  South.  But 
this  plan,  like  the  barge  one, 
came  to  naught,  for  he  was  not 
elected.  The  tales  of  tropic 
islands  in  the  South  Seas — 
"beautiful  places  green  for 
ever,  perfect  climate,  perfect 
shapes  of  men  and  women  with 
red  flowers  in  their  hair  and 
nothing  to  do  but  study  oratory 
and  etiquette,  sit  in  the  sun  and 

52 


THE       SEAS 

pick  up  the  fruits  as  they 
fall/' — remained  in  his  tena- 
cious memory.  A  guest  at  his 
father's  in  1874  spoke  of  them, 
and  the  young  Stevenson  had 
stored  the  description  away  in 
his  mind,  to  be  unearthed  when 
he  willed,  as  was  his  habit. 
When  first  he  heard  of  those 
favored  spots,  he  had  two 
anchors  which  kept  him  bound 
to  Edinburgh — his  parents. 
The  good  engineer  died  in 
1887  ;  and  the  other  anchor, 
his  mother,  he  found  could  be 
lifted,  and  became  the  best  of 
ballast.  When  he  elected  to 
become  a  world  wanderer,  she 
left  her  Edinburgh  home  and, 
without  hesitation,  went  off: 
with  her  son  and  his  household 
when  they  turned  their  backs 
on  Europe  in  1887.  Her 
journal   to   her   sister   tells    of 

53 


ACROSS 

these  travels  ^^  From  Saranac  to 
Marquesas.^''  She  simply  but 
racily  describes  their  course, 
which  ended  in  the  cruise  on 
the  Casco.  In  her  book  we  en- 
joy genuine  glimpses  of  the 
author,  not  so  much  as  the  man 
who  has  written  himself  into 
fame,  but  her  happy-tempered, 
hero-hearted,  eager-minded 
boy,  who  for  forty-five  years 
was  all  the  world  to  her.  The 
invigorating  cold  of  the 
Adirondacks  had  its  drawbacks, 
as  had  Davos ;  and  Stevenson, 
who,  a  few  years  before  had 
felt  the  sharp  pinch  of  pov- 
erty at  San  Francisco,  now 
chartered  from  there  a  ship  of 
his  own,  and  sailed  away  out  of 
the  Golden  Gate,  on  his  South 
Sea  Odyssey,  to  those  islands 
he  had  heard  of  years  before, 
little  thinking,   as  he   listened 

54 


THE       SEAS 

^'  till  he  was  sick  with  desire  to 
go  there/'  that  talk  was  to  be 
as  a  sign-post  to  him  where  to 
travel  to.  ''  For  Louis'  sake," 
his  mother  explains  in  her  racy 
journal  letters,  speaking  of 
having  chartered  the  Casco^  *'I 
can't  but  be  glad,  for  his  heart 
has  so  long  been  set  upon  it,  it 
must  surely  be  good  for  his 
health  to  have  such  a  desire 
granted."  Louis  warned  his 
mother  years  before  she  had  a 
nomad  for  a  son,  but  she  had 
never  objected,  and  sat  knitting 
on  deck,  well  content  not  to  be 
^'in  turret  pent,"  but  to  go 
forth  with  the  bright  sword  she 
had  forged.  '^  She  adapted 
herself,"  her  brother  says,  ''  to 
her  strange  surroundings,  went 
about  barefoot,  found  no  heat 
too  great  for  her,  and  at  an  age 
when  her  sisters  at  home  were 

5S 


A       C        R        O       S        S 

old  ladies,  learnt  to  ride  I  '^ 
After  many  wanderings  through' 
the  warm  ocean  waters,  with 
"green  days  in  forest  and 
blue  days  at  sea,"  the  yachters 
finally  saw  Samoa,  and  to  the 
author  it  was  the  El  Dorado  of 
his  dreams.  "  When  the  Casco 
cast  anchor,"  he  avers,  "my 
soul  went  down  with  these 
V  moorings,  whence  no  windless 
may  extract  nor  any  diver  fish 
it  up."  It  was  indeed  a  unique 
experience  for  one  of  the  mas- 
ter workers  of  the  world,  one 
whose  subtle  mintage  of  words 
'^  had  made  his  readers  his 
friends,  to  settle  in  an  utter- 
most isle  of  the  Pacific.  He 
throve  there,  and  was  able  to 
enjoy  the  flavour  of  the  life  of 
adventure  he  had  craved  for, 
and  to  look  into  the  bright  face 
of  danger.     He  built  for  him- 

56 


THE        SEAS 

self  a  palace  in  the  wild  named 
Vailima.  From  Edinburgh 
came  out  the  familiar  furniture 
he  had  been  brought  up  among, 
which  had  been  the  stage  scen- 
ery of  his  chimney-corner  days, 
when  the  back  bed-room  chairs 
became  a  ship,  and  the  sofa- 
back  was  his  hunter's  camp. 
At  Vailima  he,  like  Ibsen's 
Peer  Gynt,  received  ''a  race 
gift  from  his  childhood's 
home."  He  had  in  olden 
times  played  at  being  a  minis- 
ter like  his  grandfather,  to  wile 
away  a  toyless  Sunday.  When 
he  grew  into  his  unorthodox 
dark  shirt  and  velvet-jacket 
stage,  he  had  been  a  rebellious, 
rather  atheistical  youth  ;  but  at 
Samoa,  maybe  to  please  his 
truly  good,  uncanting  mother, 
or  the  sight  of  the  belongings 
from  his  old  home,  made  him 

57 


ACROSS 

bethink  himself  of  his  father's 
reverent  conducting  of  family 
worship.  He  would  have  the 
same,  but  set  to  work  and  com- 
posed prayers  for  himself. 
Beautifully  worded  they  are, 
full  of  his  gospel  of  kindliness 
and  gladness,  and  he  read  them 
with  eflfective  fervour  in  the 
hall  of  Vailima,  with  his  be- 
tartaned  servants  gathered 
round.  These  devotional  exer- 
cises of  his  have  been  quoted 
by  the  "  unco  guid  "  to  make 
him  into  what  Henley  severely 
styled  ''  a  Seraph  in  Chocolate, 
a  barley-sugar  effigy  of  a  real 
man.'^  The  religious  faith  of 
Stevenson  was  the  same  as  Ben 
Adhem's  in  Leigh  Hunt's 
poem,  who,  when  he  found  his 
name  was  not  among  those  who 
loved  the  Lord,  cheerily  asked 
the  angel  to  write  him  as  one 
58 


THE       SEAS 

who  loved  his  fellow-men. 
The  heavenly  messenger  re- 
turned 

"  And  showed  the  names  whom  love 
of  God  had  blessed," 
And  'Mo  !    Ben  Adhem's  led  all  the 

rest." 

To  Stevenson,  throughout  his 
life,  all  the  world  was  truly  a' 
stage.  He  went  gaily  along 
playing  his  part,  and  when  he 
came  to  Samoa,  he,  on  whose 
brows  the  dews  of  youth  still 
sparkled,  gleefully  revelled  in 
the  pomp  and  circumstance 
which  allow  him  to  make  be- 
lieve he  was  a  chieftain.  He 
could  go  flower-bedecked  and 
garlanded  without  comment  in 
among  his  adopted  subjects. 
He  paid  deference  to  Samoan 
codes  of  manners,  a  thing  he 
had  scorned  to  do  in  his  native 
land. 

59 


ACROSS 

All  his  life  he  indulged  in  too 
few  relaxations.  Thegrim 
Scots  divines,  whose  '^  damna- 
tory creed  "  Louis  objected  to 
so  strongly,  in  their  studies, 
we  read,  reserved  a  corner  for 
rod  and  gun.  In  his  library 
there  was  never  a  sign  of  sport- 
ing tools,  not  even  a  golf-club. 
He  was  not  eflfeminate  ;  in  fact, 
Xif  "  the  man  had  been  dowered 
with  better  health,  we  would 
have  lost  the  author,"  says  one 
speaker  of  him  ;  but  he  simply 
never  let  go  the  pen,  and, 
doubtless,  his  singleness  of 
purpose,  his  want  of  toil-rest- 
ing hobbies,  was  hampering  to 
his  health.  Walking-tours, 
during  which  he  was  busy  all 
the  while  taking  mental  notes 
for  some  article,  was  no  brain 
holiday.  In  Samoa,  he  en- 
joyed the  purest  of  pleasures, 

60 


THE       SEAS 

gardening.  ^'Nothing  is  so 
interesting/'  he  says,  in  his 
Vailima  Letters^  ''as  weeding, 
clearing,  and  path-making.  It 
does  make  you  feel  so  well." 
But  despite  warring  with  weeds 
and  forest  rides,  in  an  enervat- 
ing country,  he  wrote  persist- 
ently through  the  swooningly 
hot  days  of  damp  heat. 
''  I  have  done  my  fiddling  so 
long  under  Vesuvius,  that  I 
have  almost  forgotten  to  play, 
and  can  only  wait  for  the  erup- 
tion and  think  it  long  of  com- 
ing," he  wrote;  and  shortly 
after,  in  December  1894,  it 
came  and  smote  him  down  to 
the  earth  with  merciful  pain- 
lessness. His  wife,  his  step- 
children, and  his  mother  were 
beside  him  when,  at  the  high- 
est water-mark  his  craftsman- 
ship had  reached,  he  paid  the 

61 


N 


ACROSS 

debt  to  overstrain,  and  laid  him 
down  with  a  will.  The  closing 
act  of  his  life's  drama  befitted 
his  instinct  for  ef]fective  staging. 
As  he  lay  shrouded  in  his  na- 
tion's flag,  the  Samoans,  who 
loved  him,  came  to  pay  their 
tribute  and  take  farewell  of 
heir  honey-tongued  playmate 
and  counsellor,  Tusitala.  They 
counted  it  an  honour  to  be 
asked  to  hew  a  track  through 
the  tropic  forest  up  which  they 
bore  him  to  his  chosen  resting- 
place  on  the  mountain  top  of 
Vaea,  overlooking  Vailima. 
There  a  table  tombstone,  like 
that  over  the  martyrs'  graves 
on  the  hills  of  home,  marks 
where  this  kindly  Scot  is  laid, 
with  the  Pacific  for  ever  boom- 
ing his  dirge.  Samoa,  hereto- 
fore, to  most  was  but  a  speck 
on   a  great   ocean  of    another 

62 


THE       SEAS 

hemisphere.  Stevenson  trans- 
formed it  into  a  "Mecca  of 
the  Mind,"  where  pilgrims, 
bearing  his  name  in  remem- 
brance, send  their  thoughts  to 
do  reverence  at  that  shrine 
where, 

**  High  on  his  Patmos  of  the  Southern 
Seas, 
Our  Northern  dreamer  sleeps," 

no  longer  separated  from  his 
own  country  and  kindred  by  a 
world  of  waters,  but,  as  another 
friend  and  poet  said,  divided 
from  us  now  only  by  the  un- 
bridged  river  of  Death. 
Of  his  writings  the  list  is  long 
and  varied,  and  forms  a  goodly 
heritage.  Like  himself,  they 
are  compounded  of  many  parts, 
for  he  was  essayist,  poet,  novel- 
ist, traveller,  moralist,  biogra- 
pher,   and    historian,    and     a 

63 


ACROSS 

Master  of  his  Tools  at  all.  Be- 
side his  own  books,  through 
many  of  which  we  may  make 
his  intimate  acquaintance,  his 
letters,  and  others  telling  the 
story  of  his  life,  form  many 
volumes.  Stevenson  advised 
every  one  to  read  often,  not 
only  the  Waverley  Novels,  but 
the  biography  of  good  Sir  Wal- 
ter. ^^  His  life,''  he  affirmed, 
**was  perhaps  more  unique 
than  his  work,"  and  that  re- 
mark appHes  to  R.  L.  S.  him- 
self, as  well  as  to  his  great  pre- 
decessor. Having  burned  his 
immature  efforts  when  he  was 
following  his  own  ^'private 
determination  to  be  an  author," 
when  ostensibly  studying  engi- 
neering, there  are  but  two 
pamphlets,  printed  in  his  boy- 
hood, which  are  not  written 
when   he   had   acquired    his 

64 


T      IT      E        SEAS 

finished  style.  Louis'  last  crea- 
tion, Weir  of  Hermiston,  he 
himself  thought  was  his  master- 
piece, and  he  was  always  his 
own  surest  and  severest  critic. 
The  portrait  of  the  judge  on 
whom  he  modelled  Hermiston, 
/.  ^.,  Braxfield,  was  not  in  Stev- 
enson's advocate  days  be- 
queathed to  the  Parliament 
House,  but  he  had  seen  it  in  a 
Raeburn  Exhibition  he  re- 
viewed. He  recollected  the 
outward  semblance  of  the  man 
in  his  receptive  memory  till  he 
resurrected  Braxfield  as  Her- 
miston. The  half-told  tale  is 
in  itself  a  monument  which, 
unfinished  though  it  be,  shows 
us  how  clever  an  artificer  Louis 
had  become. 

And  what  manner  of  man  to 
the  outward  eye  was  this  gyp- 
sily-inclincd   descendant  of 

65 


ACROSS 

square-headed  Scottish  engi- 
neers ?  With  his  dark  eyes 
looking  as  if  they  had  drunk  in 
the  sunshine  in  some  southern 
land,  his  uncut  hair,  his  odd, 
shabby  clothes  clinging  to  his 
attenuated  frame,  his  elaborate 
manners  and  habit  of  gesticu- 
lating as  he  spoke,  he  was  often 
mistaken  for  a  starving  musician 
or  foreign  mountebank.  It  is 
not  surprising  that  continental 
officials  doubted  his  passport's 
statement  that  he  was  a  Briton. 
In  France  he  was  imprisoned, 
and  he  complains  he  could  not 
pass  a  frontier  or  visit  a  bank 
without  suspicion.  '^A  slen- 
der, boyish  presence,  with  a 
graceful,  somewhat  fantastic 
bearing,  and  a  singular  power 
of  attraction  in  the  eyes  and  a 
smile  were  the  first  things  that 
impressed    you,"    says   his  bi- 

66 


THE       SEAS 

ographer.      Like   his   mother, 
he  remained  to  the  end  of    his 
life    perennially  young  in  ap- 
pearance and  spirits.     The  bur- 
den  of    years    never  weighed 
him  down  or  dimmed  his   out- 
look.     His   face    kindled   and 
flushed  with  pleasure  when  he 
heard   of    a  doughty   deed,    a 
spice  of  wit,  or  some  tale  to  his' 
liking.     Few  drew  him  on  can- 
vas in  his  lifetime,  though  he 
summered  among  artists.     Sar- 
gent, in  1885,  did  a  small  full- 
length  portrait  of  him,  which 
*^  is  said  to  verge  on  caricature, 
and  is  in  Boston.     W.  B.  Rich- 
mond, R.  A.,  about  the  same 
time,  at  Bournemouth,  began 
another  in  oils,  not  much  more 
than  laid  in  in  two  sittings." 
Louis  sat  to  an  Italian,  Count 
Nerli,  in  Samoa ;   but  in  this 
last  portrait  he  looks  painfully 

67 


ACROSS 

haggard,  reminding  us  of  his 
own  words,  '^the  practice  of 
letters  is  miserably  harassing.'^ 
Because  of  the  too  brilliant 
light  elsewhere  in  Vailima,  he 
was  painted  in  a  room  which 
was  close,  and  the  air  fatigued 
him.  While  sitting,  he  wiled 
away  an  hour  by  making 
doggerel  lines  all  to  rhyme  with 
the  artistes  name,  Nerli.  The 
portrait  was  bought  by  a  Scotch- 
woman travelling  in  New  Zeal- 
and, where,  after  the  author's 
death,  it  had  remained  unsold. 
His  mother,  on  returning  to 
Scotland  when  bereft  of  her 
boy,  asked  to  see  the  picture 
again.  She  had  disapproved  of 
it  in  Samoa,  as  it  was  over  true 
a  likeness,  representing  him 
sadly  emaciated.  Seeing  it 
again,  she  revoked  her  former 
judgment,  and  wished  to  pos- 

68 


THE       SEAS 

sess  it,  but  the  purchaser  also 
had  grown  to  prize  it.  So  it 
hangs  in  her  drawing-room, 
near  by  where  the  Eildons  stand 
sentinel  over  Scott's  resting- 
place.  This  picture  of  him 
who  lies  on  Vaea's  crest  looks 
down  with  a  slightly  quizzical 
expression,  as  if  amused  at 
finding  himself  ensconced  in  a 
place  of  honour  in  the  house 
of  strangers  on  Tweedside. 
Photographs  there  are  in  plenty 
of  Stevenson,  and  one  snap- 
shot, enlarged  in  the  Edin- 
burgh Edition,  recalls  him 
looking  up  with  ''  long,  hatchet 
face,  black  hair,  and  haunting 
gaze,  that  follows  as  you  move 
about  the  room."  But  his 
likeness  was  as  difficult  for  the 
photographer,  or  the  sun,  to 
catch,  as  for  the  painter  to  put 
on  canvas,  for  the  peculiar  fasci- 

69 


ACROSS 

nation  of  the  living  man  lay  in 
himself,  in  the  elusive  charm 
of  his  smile,  and  in  his  manner 
of  speech.  However,  his  con- 
temporaries have  left  their 
printed  records  of  his  appear- 
ance and  his  peculiar  person- 
ality. Henley's  perfect  de- 
scription in  verse  is  too  well 
known  to  need  quotation. 
Ugly,  Stevenson  called  himself, 
but  this  was  not  so.  He  was 
original  in  looks  and  mind,  his 
lank  brown  hair  straggled  over 
his  high  forehead,  and  framed 
his  thin,  high-cheeked,  sallow, 
oval  face.  His  brown  eyes  and 
full  red  lips  gave  a  dash  of 
colour  to  his  features.  His 
schoolmate,  Mr.  Baildon,  says 
truly,  ^^his  eyes  were  always 
genial,  however  gaily  the  lights 
danced  in  them  ;  but  about  the 
mouth  there  was  something  of 

70 


THE       SEAS 

trickery  and  mocking,  as  of  a 
spirit  that  had  already  peeped 
behind  the  scenes  of  Life's  pag- 
eant, and  more  than  guessed  its 
unrealities." 

Repose  he  never  tasted  of,  for 
his  zest  in  life,  his  adventurous 
inclination  to  explore,  his  in- 
satiable curiosity,  kept  him 
ever  moving  at  topmost  speed. 
To  understand  the  mainspring 
which  aflfected  the  man's  char- 
acter— the  machinery  that  sup- 
plied him  with  an  inexhaustible 
nerve  force  and  vitality — Mr 
Colvin  explains,  '^besides  hu- 
mour, which  kept  wholesome 
laughter  always  ready  at  his 
lips,  was  a  perfectly  warm, 
loyal,  and  tender  heart,  which, 
through  all  his  experiments  and 
agitations,  made  the  law  of  .. 
kindness  the  one  ruling  law  of  "'^''^ 
his  life. "     He  marvelled,  on  his 

71 


\ 


ACROSS 

way  through  the  Pilgrim^ s  Prog- 
ress^ why  the  man  with  the 
muck-rake  grovelled  in  straws 
and  dust,  and  never  looked  up 
to  the  glittering  crown  held  out 
for  his  acceptance.  This  mul- 
ish blindness  puzzled  the  boy, 
and  when  he  grew  up,  he 
opened  the  eyes,  and  illumined 
by  his  work  and  his  example 
the  dreary-hearted  who  wasted 
their  opportunities,  not  seeing 
the  number  of  beautiful  things 
which  made  the  world  into  a 
royal  pleasance.  With  tune- 
ful words  he  persuaded  those 
who  plodded  with  dusty  feet 
along  the  high-road  to  pause 
for  a  while  and  saunter  among 
the  greener  fields  of  earth,  and 
through  the  stimulating  cour- 
age that  shone  through  every 
chapter  he  wrote,  he,  like  his 
sires,  ^^  the  ready  and  the  strong 

72 


T     H 


SEAS 


of  word,"  haSj  by  his  works, 
left  lights  to  shine  upon  the 
paths  of  men. 


!!^^]R-A:f? 


OF   THE 


UNIVERSITY 


OF 


SALlFOHH^h 


SPIRIT   of  the 
AGE    SERIES 

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EPIGRAMS  ^wJ  APORISMS 

by  OSCATi  IFILDE 

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